Latest Blog Post

PayPal is Cracking the Code on Mobile Payments by Winning Hearts and Minds at the Point of Sale

Posted on Jun 01, 2012

PayPal recently announced its latest point of sale successes and partnerships, as well as their ongoing plans to expand offline payments in addition to their traditional online payments. This may seem odd to many industry followers given that online sales continue to grow at a much higher rate than offline sales. However, payment expert Leilani Doyle at US Dataworks believes there is an underlying strategy to win big in the mobile payment space by blending the online and offline buying experience.

"PayPal is learning about consumer buying behavior at the point of sale which comes with a whole new set of customer and merchant expectations," Doyle stated. "When you look at the mobile buying experience, it has to be a ubiquitous and consistent experience regardless of whether you are buying airline tickets online or a gallon of Paint at Home Depot. With PayPal aggressively attacking offline POS payments, they are one step closer to putting all the pieces together for a major mobile success story."

Home Depot, PayPal's first offline retailer, reports that the PayPal experience was fast, convenient, and secure, explaining its rapid growth from 5 stores to 2,000 stores in only a matter of months. Now, PayPal is adding even more brand name retailers, especially retailers that cater to the youth market. In addition, POS device manufactures are working with PayPal in order to gain even more visibility at retail locations.

However, there may be some payment processing giants that will be offended by PayPal's direct approach to offering merchant services. Just imagine how all those merchant acquirers, gateways, and ISOs with react to being cut out of their fair share of the merchant acquirer fees for processing PayPal transactions. This direct approach of blending offline, online and mobile payments is disruptive to the industry and for that reason, PayPal just may have a shot at achieving world domination.